Punishment or Road Construction?

In 2015 when the present occupant of governorship office in Lagos State was campaigning for the office, the main emphasized façade that was packaged, jingled, published, publicised and broadcast about him to his supporters and those who voted for him to be the governor is ACCOUNTANCY. The headline of the news then was this: “He is an accountant!” But what he would be accountable for and to whom he shall be accountable were not stated.

For now, let us ignore the word accountability. What exactly is the meaning of ACCOUNTANCY in socio-economic and political development perspectives? In simple description, within the sphere of socio-economics, it means the quality or intellectual skill of making logical policy that leads to the most prudent use and maximization of resources; a decision-making process that MUST keep the society and the economy moving. In modern-day politics, ACCOUNTANCY does not entail inflow and outflow of cash alone; it mainly involves governance decision that would never throw a clog into the wheel of the social system.

What is a social system? It is the network of different units or elements of all activities in a society that must work perfectly to contribute positively as a unified force to economic growth for general advantage of all. Such elements of social system include public transportation, telecom services, electricity supply, commerce/trade, security services, health services, education system etc. Each of these depends on maximization of work hours i.e. time.

Looking at what characterizes the elements of social system in Lagos in the last two years, it is clear that Akinwunmi Ambode (who is also humorously labelled as Àmbówájalè) seems to have an extremely limited knowledge of what accounting entails in a modern society. Theoretically, accounting is wrapped around cash flows but in practical terms, it involves proficiency in time management. Time is the most important resource in the world; it is the mechanism that moves the entire social system. It is the pillar of creativity, the record of history, the timeline of education, and the guide of innovation (not destruction) of a society's pattern of commerce. In fact, time reflects transparency of government’s services.

Experientially in most locations in Lagos now, it takes road users at least two hours to travel a 10-kilometre distance in the morning and three hours in the evening. Logically, a 10-kilometre distance should not take more than 15 minutes to travel. Therefore, if an average resident spends five hours daily on the roads instead of 30 minutes, it means every road users in Lagos wastes 4 hours and 30 minutes. With an elementary knowledge of arithmetic, how many work hours would 10 million road users waste daily and weekly in Lagos? Daily, the answer would be this:  10,000,000 people × 4 hours, 30 minutes = 60,000,000 work hours per day. Weekly, the total wasted work hours would amount to at least 300,000,000 (excluding Saturdays and Sundays). It can then be said that annually, over 15.6 trillion work hours are wasted in traffic gridlocks from Mondays to Fridays in Lagos. If each work hour worth $10 in New York, you can imagine how catastrophically resourceful and accountable the governor is!

Without any argument, with such government-engineered wasted work hours in Lagos that seems to be nothing to those in power, countries like Croatia (4.1 million population in 2016), Lithuania (2.87 million population in 2016), Malta (0.4 million population in 2016) and Estonia (1.3 million population in 2016) altogether were able to build their countries from points of foundations to what they are presently. Are angels the occupiers of political offices in such places?

If transportation within Lagos nowadays requires more time than traveling from Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja to Heathrow in London, would it be logical to identify the governor of the state an accountant? And if he’s an accountant whose understanding of time can be rated as zero, to whom is he financially accountable? No doubt, it could be arguably affirmed that he is not accountable to the public.

If he is, what is the name of the construction company that is destroying the erstwhile “peaceful” traffic in Lagos? For years residents in the state have wondered and asked the same question. It seems only the so-called accountant governor knows the name. Probably, the corporate identity of the company is “Ambode Arrangement Construction Ventures” like what Fela Anikulapo Kuti once called Army Arrangement.

Only God knows when the Lagos State government-engineered punishment of the common people would “expire” on Lagos roads. Since there is not fixed time for the stoppage of the non-stop destructive road construction of the unnamed company, wastage of important work hours would not cease.

Akinlolú-Prime Samuelo

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